


Chicken Soup

by ourladyofmanycats



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Common Cold, Fitz is trying, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Jemma Simmons Needs a Hug, Little bit of angst, Not Canon Compliant, Post Season 4, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 11:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11183811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourladyofmanycats/pseuds/ourladyofmanycats
Summary: Jemma has a cold, Fitz is trying, and Daisy is bad at making tea.





	Chicken Soup

**Author's Note:**

> AU (Post Season 4) The team is still inhabiting the playground, which hasn't been destroyed. No one is in space, etc.

Jemma was good at self-care. Of course, this was partly because she was a doctor and partly because she was an agent and under massive amounts of stress almost all of the time. Despite all of the spinach salads with dressing on the side, and despite her annual flu shot and half hour of jogging every morning (followed by a glucosamine supplement and cup of black tea) she still managed to get someone’s cold. The “who” that infected her was the matter of another day, but the list of potential perpetrators was long. Even though she’d put rules in place to keep sickness out of the lab, when they were pressed for time during a case, anyone could slip through the cracks. After all, she made a point to hire the best, brightest, and most enthusiastic.  


The cold started harmless enough, just a tickle in her throat that she combated with as many hot drinks as she could fit in along with zinc tablets, but the cold still hit Jemma, and hard. By day two, she was dizzy when she stood and her nose was a faucet. She texted Coulson that she couldn’t work and rested her head on the pillow in her room. She needed someone to come carry her hot bowls of chicken soup, but things were still strained with Fitz since everything that had gone on in the framework. And besides, he was probably back to working and that was what was best for him.  


She knew that man. What he needed now was to prove that he was valuable, that the team didn’t need to get rid of him.  


Jemma had taken to her sick bed, lamp on, TV showing ancient re-runs of Dr. Who. For the last couple of hours, her experience had been close to bliss. Aside from the pile of tissues that her bin contained and the cough that burned her throat and chest, she was enjoying the solitude. She missed the sunlight, but the comforting drone of the first doctor’s voice was doing its job.  
It had been a while since she liked being alone. Sometimes, the hours of silence when she was drifting off to bed at night was numbing and when she woke from nightmares, there were times that she still expected to hear the soft thrumming of his heart of the shallow pulls of his breath.

 

“Knock knock” said Daisy, as the opened the door, unpracticed at waiting for Jemma to reply before coming in. “I have tea for you.” She sat down Jemma’s favorite white porcelain cup on the beside table.  


“Yum. Thank you,” Jemma replied, debating whether or not it was worth sitting up.  


“I’m not sure how you Brits make it, so forgive me if it’s not proper enough.” Daisy pulled out the chair from Jemma’s desk and sat down.  


Jem shook her head. It wouldn’t be the same as how she prepared it, but it was the thought that counted anyway. Even if American tea was weak and bland. “It’s probably just what I need on my stomach.”  


“Is it just a cold? Are you throwing up, too?”  


“Goodness, no, just a bit of mucous and some aching.” She sat up and the room spun again. Her hair had come loose from its ponytail and was sticking up on the side of her head. “I look a fright, don’t I?”  


“I’ve seen worse.”  


Jemma tried to laugh. Somehow she doubted it.  


“Your eyes are a little red and your hair is ridiculous, but really, so long as there aren’t thorns coming out of your head, I think you look fine.”  


“Ah, so it only feels like there are thorns.” She blew her nose.  


“Has Fitz been in to check on you?”  


“I’m sure he’s been quarantined in the lab all day.”  


“It’s not even noon yet,” Daisy said. She checked her watch. “Only nine thirteen.”  


It didn’t matter if he came or not, Jemma said to herself. Word probably hadn’t gotten around. And even if it had, nothing about her being sick meant that Fitz had to undertake the task of caring for her. After all, there had been a time when Jemma lived on an alien planet by her own force of will. She could certainly last having a cold. That being said, she had only been awake for four hours and it had already felt like a lifetime.  


She groaned.  


“Yeah, yeah. I know. How about some of that stuff that helps you sleep it off?” Daisy walked into the bathroom and checked in the medicine cabinet.  
“I don’t have any.” Jemma said.  


“What? Nothing?” Daisy called, flipping through the things in there. “A heating pad, cotton swabs, and petroleum jelly. The best part of this is that you don’t even own bandages.”  


“Can always get them from the lab—it’s just down the hall.”  


“Okay, I’ll be back, then. No sense in your lying there completely miserable.” 

 

Jemma didn’t actually need the medicine to fall asleep. It must have been fifteen minutes after Daisy left that she had conked out. She dreamed of being late to a physics exam, only to find out that she hadn’t been counted as present for a single class all year. Fretfully, as the professor handed her an academic probation slip, she jolted awake. Again, the doctor was running from something. This time, daleks.  


Coulson was the next to knock on the door, the medicine in hand. “Daisy said you needed this?” He stopped in his tracks. “I’d agree.”  


“Ha,” she said, sitting up. “With that attitude you’ll be next.”  


“Cruel of you to say, Simmons.” He feigned offense. Despite his jab, she sat down on the side of the bed next to her and measured out the red liquid.  


“I always hated taking medicine, sir.” She admitted before blowing her nose in anticipation.  


He smiled. “I’d have brought a spoonful of sugar if you’d told me before.” He handed her the cup, waiting patiently as she put her things away.  


She eyed the thing warily.  


“Pretend that it’s a vintage bourbon—expensive and not for eveyone’s palette. If anyone could choke it down, I wouldn’t put it past you. You’re a tough woman and a brilliant scientist. A little cold medicine is not going to get the best of you.”  


Jemma gulped it down. She was as strong as he said, she knew.  


“Can I get you anything else? Need a rookie from the lab to carry your tissues off?” His words held deeper meaning, as they always seemed to.  


“He’s busy. It’s fine.” She coughed again, and winced. “Like you said, tough and brilliant.”  


Coulson stood up and put the medicine on the table beside the cold, weak tea. “You know how to reach me if you need anything.”  


“Thank you, sir.” 

 

For a couple of hours, Jemma Simmons had been so fast asleep that she didn’t notice the pools of snot that had swallowed her nose whole. Breathing through her mouth was not pretty, but it was certainly effective enough to keep her in oxygen. She woke with a start and spent an entire three tissues on her predicament, thanking destiny that Fitz was MIA.  


Her stomach grumbled. She needed water and food, two things that she would have been wise enough to ask for when Daisy came around, but had been too sick to remember. Sitting up again, she eyed her slip-on trainers, and then, overwhelmingly, the room began to spin. “Secondary ear infection”, she whispered to herself. She still needed to stand.  


In a lapse of judgment, she looked at the tea. It couldn’t be that bad, really, considering tea was always better than no tea. She leaned over, one hand gripping onto her heavy comforter to keep her from sliding off the bed, and grabbed the mug with her other hand. She took a swig, and then proceeded to taste it and spit most of it back into the teacup. No one was here. She didn’t have to be graceful. “Oh, Daisy,” she whispered. “this won’t do.”  


She thought of calling someone, but really didn’t want to trouble anyone and neither did she really want anyone to look at her in this state. She took a deep breath and stood up as slowly as she could and made her way toward her trainers and out the door, her robe tied loosely around her waist. There was no one walking down the hall, luckily, and she made her way to the kitchen. Her sniffles echoed.  


Two low-ranking lab assistants were in the kitchen when she finally made it in, but taking one look at her, they elected not to ask, because previous experience had warned them that she was impatient when she wanted to be left alone.  


Jemma made a proper cup of tea, put one bottle of water in each pocket of her robe, and went on to scouring the cabinets. There was nothing instant, of course, herself having basically written the rule that the only food allowed in the compound that came in any sort of package was beer.  


Damn her doctorate.  


“What are you doing in here?” Someone asked.  


Jemma turned around, “Agent May,” she said, almost like a hello.  


“I heard you’re sick. Why aren’t you in bed?” She crossed her arms, the trademark Melinda May Mothering Technique.  


Jemma shrugged. “I’m hungry.”It was true. Her stomach growled to punctuate her.  


“How about an orange?” She grabbed it from the bowl on the counter.  


“Good point,” Jemma said, taking the orange and holding it for dear life. It sounded delicious, but all she could think about was the stickiness of the fruit juice dripping onto her comforter, staining the absolutely beautiful crème color, and ruining her sickbed. “Vitamin C, and all that.” Leaning against the wall for stability, she headed back into her room. 

 

“This is where you’ve been?” said Fitz, who was sitting on the chair that Daisy had pulled out earlier. “Up and around gallivanting all over the base?” He chided. “Sit down.” Fitz pulled the covers aside to make room for her and once she was good and seated, he started pulling things from her pockets.  
“I was getting something to eat.”  


“What? No, you needn’t do that. You ought to have just waited for me.”  


“Waited for what? How was I supposed to know that you were coming to see me?” She sniffed, and then blew her nose once more.  


“You bloody well knew that I wasn’t going to ignore you when you’re sick. I’ve been making you soup all morning.” He pulled a steaming bowl off of the desk and sat it on her lap once she settled.  


“Oh, Fitz,” she said, so quietly it was almost a whisper.  


He pulled his chair by the side of her bed and pushed her hair to the side. “And after, you’re getting into the shower because you smell awful.”  


She laughed. “This is the same soup that you made for me at the academy on the one day that I missed Vaughn’s class.”  


“Not quite. There’s a lot more hot sauce in this one.”  


Jemma’s mouth watered.  


“I remember you being so sick last time that you could barely taste it. I figured I’d cover all my bases on this one.”  


“Thank you so much.”  


“You’ll thank me more when I tell you that I threw out that god-awful tea, too.”  


Jemma took a nip at the soup, full of soft chicken and corn, carrots, and onion. There was something green in there as well. It may have been because she was absolutely starving, but she couldn’t imagine anything more perfect. “This is exactly what I needed.”  


He smiled lightly, his mouth in his hand, almost as if he was hesitant to let her see. “I’m trying.”  


She knew this meant more than soup. He meant a thousand more things that Jemma wasn’t sure she had the strength to discuss. “I know,” she replied, though. She was unwilling to let Leo think that she would give up on him. She couldn’t.  


“You’ll let me know if you need anything else?” He asked, standing up with a sigh. He was wearing that blue shirt, the one that made his eyes stand at attention. He stood with his hands on his hips.  


And Jemma could think of nothing more she desired (aside from being rid of the cold) than to feel the warm skin of his chest pressed against her cheek. To curl into him slowly, the way ferns go to sleep in the forest. “Won’t you sit down?” She asked. Her voice trembled, but she wasn’t sure if it was her sore throat or her deepest desires all trying to flutter out of her mouth like Pandora’s box.  


“I’m not sure if that’s the best—“ he began.  


“Please. I’m sick after all.”  


Leo waited a moment before sitting back down. He never wanted her to beg. “Alright. I’ll stay some, watch an episode or two of this with you.” He turned up a volume on the TV a smidge.  


Jemma took another sip of her soup, and her eyes watered. She wasn’t sure if it was the spice or something else.


End file.
